What could be more convenient than texting your financial gift straight from your phone? Text Giving provides a simple process, making giving via text quick and easy.

As pictured above, all a person needs to do is text the word “give” and then the amount they wish to donate. If they entered the wrong amount, then they can just text "refund" and it will be like the gift never happened.

You can customize which keywords a person texts to donate or request a refund. The keywords are case-insensitive, so it doesn’t matter if someone texts “give” or “Give”. Similarly, the person can either add the dollar sign or not. If the amount is in the thousands, they can include the comma ($1,500) or not ($1500).

Before a person can start Text Giving, though, they’ll need to register. We’ll walk you through the registration and giving process, and then show you how to set it all up.

The Text Giving Experience

Below we’ll look at what a person can expect as they go through the Text Giving process. It starts with a one-time registration each person needs to complete (or you can do it for them, more on that later). Going forward they can text a keyword and an amount, to give at the push of a button.

Text Giving Registration

When a person first texts a giving keyword to your SMS Pipeline they’ll get a response containing a link to the registration page. This is where people go to complete the one-time setup needed to give by text and to complete their first gift.

Out of the box, the setup page is configured for you on the external site template we provide. Located under the Give area, a person could navigate there directly rather than accessing it by text. The page comes with the Utility Payment Entry block. The Utility Payment Entry block is the money block, literally, for Text Giving. However, an administrator must configure this block before Text Giving can be used. We’ll cover that configuration a little later.

If the person is logged in, most of the form is filled in for them. They'll just need to provide a payment method. Otherwise, the form is short and easy to complete.

After submitting the form pictured above, the person sees the confirmation page pictured below. The text near the top of the block lets them know their next gift can be sent by texting the word “Give” followed by an amount.

You can configure what the message along the top says by updating the Finish Lava Template block setting for this block. You’ll want to update this if your SMS Pipeline is configured with giving keywords other than “Give”. We’ll dive into the SMS Pipeline configuration in a bit, but for now just know that’s where giving keywords (like "Give" or "Gift") are configured.

Continued Giving

After the above setup is complete, the person can give simply by texting a keyword and an amount.

If they need to access the setup page again, perhaps because they want to change their payment method, all they need to do is text “Setup” and they’ll be sent a link to the setup page. Like the giving keyword, you can configure what Setup keyword(s) a person can text. You can also customize the response the person receives. We'll show you how to set that up in the configuration section below.

Other Scenarios

What we’ve described will be the experience for most people. They will text a giving keyword and will receive a response confirming the gift or requesting they register. Occasionally they may text “Setup” if they need to make changes. However, there are other scenarios. Below is what comes with Rock out of the box, but for each of these scenarios you can customize the response.

Help Response

Because people can text just about anything, the text a person sends may not be what Rock is expecting. Or perhaps an error occurred. In those cases, Rock sends a response providing directions on how to use Text Giving.

Max Amount Response

You can optionally set a maximum allowed amount for Text Giving. If the person tries to give over that amount, they'll receive this response.

Refund Failure Response

Text Giving also allows people to request a refund of their last texted donation. However, there are scenarios where the refund can’t be processed via text (see below). In those cases, the person receives the response seen here.

Refund Success Response

If the refund is requested within a configurable amount of time, the person can text a refund keyword and it will be like the donation never happened. That’s because there’s a configurable delay between the person’s text and sending the transaction through your financial gateway.

Missing Amount Response

If Rock picks up a giving keyword in the person’s text, but can’t determine the amount, the person receives this response. All the person needs to do here is respond with the amount they wish to give (no keyword is needed).

Transaction Failure Response
If the transaction can't process or encounters an error, this is the message the person may receive. However, if you delay processing (see Processing Delay Minutes below) then the message configured in the Charge Future Transactions job will be sent instead.